Repairs for Crumbling Bridge After Piece Hits SUV

SCRANTON — PennDOT crews will be out Friday night checking the Harrison Avenue Bridge for loose parts. This comes after a piece of the bridge went through a woman’s windshield Thursday evening.

Kris from Scranton bought her Chevy Tahoe on Wednesday. On Friday, she was already having her windshield replaced. She said the odds of her bad luck seemed less likely than being struck by lightning twice.

“It was like, my life flashed before my eyes, that is really true, it happens,” Kris said.

She told Newswatch 16 all about what should’ve been a normal trip to her friend’s house in Carbondale. As she drove under the Harrison Avenue Bridge on the Central Scranton Expressway a piece of the bridge came flying at her windshield.

“All of a sudden, out of the blue, a big old rock comes falling down. It felt like a body or something or an explosion went off right in front of the car. Thank God, I didn’t close my eyes because I didn’t want to lose control of the vehicle,” she added.

She said the chunk of concrete was about six inches long but it left quite the mark on her windshield. She and everyone in her car were okay.

Not long after Kris called police, PennDOT came out to check the bridge. Officials say it’s structurally sound, people can drive over it. But, there’s no way to know if anyone driving underneath it would be as unlucky as Kris.

“It’s decoration type pieces, it’s concrete, that’s what has fallen off, and that’s what we’re going to come in and remove. Even in the removing of it, it won’t disrupt the structural integrity of the bridge at all,” said PennDOT spokesperson James May.

May said there wasn’t an immediate concern that another rock would come falling down. But, the speckled facade on the 91-year-old bridge certainly shows that pieces have fallen before.

So, contractors working on another bridge in Scranton are moving to Harrison Avenue to remove parts of the facade that are at risk of crumbling.